Broomstick - Part Fifteen

Everyone got up, and Lox motioned to a door, walking over and opening it for everyone. “If you’ll please step into this next room,” she remarked. I realized that she was the girl I had scried, whom I hadn’t seen. Very eager girl.

I went into the next room, which was filled with diagrams hanging on the walls, as well as protective vests and helmets that were meant to show the kind of gear that spelunkers and explorers wore.

“We’ll start,” Lox said, “with a brief explanation of the history of the Nether exploration trade. The Nether was discovered eighty years ago by a scientist named Victor E. Ismyne, a bear working in quantum magic theory and also the grandfather of Papa Ismyne, the manager of this company. Victor was the first to conjecture that magic did not travel through material means, through the air, but rather he theorized that magic existed in an entirely different dimension which was mostly closed off to normal people, but which affected everything in our lives.” Lox showed off a few old portraits of Victor E. Ismyne; he was a stately gray bear with large glasses on his head and a monogrammed cane in his hand.

“Let’s fast-forward about eight years. By this time Ismyne’s Theorem was largely accepted by the general scientific population,” Lox informed us, “but we had yet to cross dimensions and prove that the Nether realm existed. A man named Bert Norrell, a magician of high repute, worked out a spell that could enable magic to transport a human through the Nether realm. The theories that have developed concerning exploration of this new dimension have come to be known as Norrell’s Laws, and gateways to the Nether are sometimes called Norrell’s Doors.

“Norrell’s followers improved his spell and soon they came to have a sophisticated tool for travelling through the Nether. However, they did not know the effects of Nether travel quite yet, and so they preferred to sit back and ponder what little experience they had of the Nether realm.” Lox paused and smiled at the assembled guests. I heard the ducklings’ pencils scratching as they took notes for their field trip; the dish was simply staring at Spoonella and was not paying attention. I smiled back at Lox.

Lox continued. “Eh-hem. Anyway, an apprentice of Norrell thought that his master was too cautious with these new theories. He put on a helmet and some knee-pads and opened a gate and plunged through. He was never seen again.

“More cautious exploration was developed in his tradition, but with proper safety measures,” Lox explained. “Spelunkers took on the name Strangers, supposedly because the reckless apprentice was named Strange. That has never been confirmed. Anyway, slowly it was recognized that there was a pattern to the shifting of the Nether currents. Explorations were risky, though, because the pattern was never fully understood and often people were stranded in the Nether due to the uncontrollable effect of magic.

“However, just as Nether exploration was fading, and people stopped funding spelunkers, a young woman named Alice Shipton came along. She was a daring explorer, and eventually charted the flows of the Nether and how it moved.” Now this was the interesting part. She might contact me at any moment, and I needed to understand how the Nether worked. Lox continued, pointing to a diagram, “she figured out how magic is altered in the Nether dimension and how that same effect, called the Shipton Factor, could account for the seemingly unpredictable flow of the Nether. Now, thanks to her work, the Nether is safe for some tourism, so that even inexperienced beginners can see how it works.”

“Good for me,” I chuckled as Lox finished.

“Why’s that?” she asked, narrowing her eyes as she looked at me.

“Well, because I’m inexperienced...” I trailed off, then picked up again, “...and a beginner...”

“Oh.” Lox nodded and raised her voice to everyone in the room. “All right, let’s move to the preparation station!” I grimaced. Did everything rhyme around here?